ART AND DESIGN
To see how architecture fits into
the general classification of the arts,
see: Definition of Art.
For more about the different
disciplines, see: Types of Art.

RARE BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE
If you are looking for a source
of secondhand books on the
Romanesque style practiced by
Henry Hobson Richardson,
see: Rare Art Books.

Biography

One of the great American
architects whose buildings helped to transform 19th century architectural
design in the United States, H.H. Richardson
ranks alongside Frank Lloyd Wright
(1867-1959) and Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) in his contribution to American
art: indeed, some historians consider him to be America's best 19th-century
architect. His designs, based on Romanesque
art, triggered a decade of Romanesque Revival in America, and his
buildings had a significant impact on the Chicago
School of architecture and its pioneering skyscraper designs. Although
his initial fame came from his design of Trinity Church, Boston, his main
achievements in architectural design occurred in four building types:
commercial buildings, commuter train station buildings, public libraries,
and private houses. Of these, his two greatest works of 19th
century architecture were the Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail
(1883-88), and the Marshall Field Wholesale Store (1885-87) in Chicago.
His assistants included many leaders of the next generation of American
architects, such as Charles McKim (1847-1909), Stanford White (1853-1906),
George Shepley (1860-1903) and John Galen Howard (1864-1931). HH Richardson
is today ranked among the greatest architects
of 19th century America.

Education and
Architectural Training

Born and raised in Louisiana, Henry Hobson
Richardson studied civil engineering at Harvard College and Tulane University,
after which he became only the second American student, after Richard
Morris Hunt (1827-95), to study architecture
at the Ecole
des Beaux-Arts in Paris (c.1861-65). Here, he worked under Theodore
Labrouste and J.I.Hittorf. Paradoxically, the architectural style that
Richardson would adopt and refine over time, however, was not the Beaux-Arts,
Gothic Revival or neoclassical
architecture of his contemporaries, but a more medievalist style,
influenced by the Arts & Crafts designer William
Morris (1834-96), the art critic John
Ruskin (1819-1900), the French medievalist architect Viollet-le-Duc
(1814-79), and in particular the Romanesque architecture
of southern France. It would be christened "Richardsonian Romanesque".
(Conversely, the Ohio-born architect Cass Gilbert,
1859-1934, who became the leading exponent of Beaux-Arts architecture
in America, did not attend the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.)

Early Building
Designs

Meantime, he returned to the United States
in 1865 and opened his professional practice in New York in 1866. That
November he won his first commission, for Unity Church (1866-68), Springfield,
Massachusetts.

In 1867 Richardson went into partnership
with Charles Dexter Gambrill, who acted as business manager for the firm.
Richardson's early buildings followed the then-current revival style of
Gothic architecture
and Second Empire. But beginning in 1869, he began to explore designs
with forms derived from Romanesque sources. First, he designed the New
York State Asylum in Buffalo, a huge structure built out of Medina sandstone
which is known today as the H.H. Richardson Complex. This was followed
by projects such as Brattle Square Church (1869-73), Boston, and his first
masterpiece - Trinity Church, Boston.

Trinity Church:
Richardsonian Romanesque

The embodiment of Richardson Romanesque,
Trinity Church Boston (1872-77) was built in association with the engineering
firm of the Norcross Brothers, with whom Richardson would collaborate
many times over the next decades. Its combination of large crossing tower,
deep-set arches and the thickness of its structures is reminiscent of
traditional Romanesque styles. Based on the layout of a Greek cross, and
influenced by the floor plan used in Salamanca Cathedral in Spain, and
St Mark's Cathedral, Venice, the craftsmanship and detail of its interior
owes a great deal to the Arts
and Crafts movement. It was here that Richardson began his long working
relationship with the French-born sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens (1848-1907).
The publicity surrounding Trinity Church, particularly after its completion
in 1877, propelled him to the front rank of American architects. For example,
out of ten buildings cited by American architects as the best in 1885,
half were designed by Richardson: besides Trinity Church, they included:
Sever Hall at Harvard, Albany City Hall, the New York State Capitol in
Albany, and the Town Hall in North Easton, Massachusetts.

Mature Style
of Architecture

In 1878 Richardson dissolved the partnership
and moved his office to Brookline, Massachusetts. Over the next eight
years he refined his architectural style through the simplification of
form and the elimination of extraneous ornament and historical detail.
His buildings - monumentally heavy, yet simple in line - incorporated
semicircular arches, towers and rusticated brick facades. Among the notable
projects from this phase of his career are his buildings at Sever Hall,
Harvard University (1878-80) - which featured 60 different types of carved
bricks and two unique turrets - and Austin Hall (1881-84); a series of
small libraries, primarily those in the Boston suburbs of Woburn, North
Easton, Quincy and Maiden, and a series of railroad stations (inspired
by Japanese designs), including nine for the Boston and Albany Railroad
Company, many of which were landscaped by Richardson's regular collaborator,
Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903). In addition, Richardson designed several
commercial structures, such as the Cheney Building (1875-76), Hartford,
and three stores in Boston for the Ames family. He also collaborated on
the design for the New York State Capitol (1876-86), Albany, and was responsible
for the dramatic Senate Chamber, western stair and multiple judicial and
executive chambers.

Domestic Architecture

Richardson's houses were marked by significant
departures in domestic design. His initial exploration of living hall
planning culminated in the William Watts Sherman House (1874-76), Newport,
the first Queen Anne design in America. His later country houses, beginning
with the Dr. John Bryant House (1880-81), Cohasset, Massachusetts, further
developed living hall planning and represented a critical phase of the
mature "Shingle Style". Richardson's urban houses, usually of
brick or stone, also took advantage of the planning innovations of his
country houses. His most influential urban houses included the John Hay
and Henry Adams houses, Washington DC (1884-86), and the John J. Glessner
House in Chicago (1885-87), which had a significant impact on Frank Lloyd
Wright and his "Prairie School" houses. His most famous suburban
and country houses were the Mary Fisk Stoughton House (Cambridge, Massachusetts,
1882-83) and the Henry Potter House (St. Louis, 1886-87).

Allegheny County
Courthouse and Jail

Richardson's career culminated in the design
of the Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail (1883-88), Pittsburgh, and
the Marshall Field Wholesale Store (1885-87), Chicago. The Allegheny Courthouse
was a sophisticated design resolution of complex functional requirements.
The jail, in the shape of an asymmetrical cross, is connected to the courthouse
across the street by the Bridge of Sighs. These structures epitomized
the growing sense of gravity, sobriety and stateliness that is the hallmark
of his best work.

Marshall Field
Wholesale Store

Although constructed out of stone without
using a steel frame - in contrast to the cutting-edge Home Insurance Building
in Chicago (1884-85) designed by William
Le Baron Jenney (1832-1907) - Richardson's Marshall Field Wholesale
Store (18851887, demolished 1930) had a major impact on the development
of modern building facades. Its design influenced leading architects including
Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and others. Borrowing features from
both Romanesque and Renaissance art,
as well as his own earlier works, Richardson created a massive but integrated
warehouse, emphasizing symmetry and material components rather than superficial
ornamentation. The building featured multi-storied windows crowned by
semicircular window arches, in order to create a unified, harmonious and
monumental structure, which occupied an entire city block.

Richardson's health was never particularly
good, and, beseiged with commissions later in his career, he came under
severe pressure and died of chronic kidney disorder at the relatively
young age of 47. His office was continued under the name Shepley, Rutan
and Coolidge by his three chief assistants, who saw that his remaining
buildings were completed as he had intended. These projects included the
Allegheny County Courthouse, the Marshall Field Wholesale Store and the
Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce Building.